PAGE SIX
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN, LAWRENCE, KANSAS
TUESDAY. OCTOBER 31, 1950
The Editorial Page-
De-seat-ful Disturbance
It appears now that something more important than a football game was lost on Saturday. While Stinson and company were preparing to win a reputation for K.U. on the football field, the business interests in the athletic department, capitalizing on the intense feeling over the game, sold K.U.'s integrity for a mess of porridge. Reserved seat tickets for section E were sold to fans, but the owners in most cases were unable to claim their seats which ordinarily belonged in the student section. Students who had occupied seats since 12:30 p.m. were told at 1:50 p.m. to get out. Most of them, understandably, refused to move. The result was a black eye for K.U.
In Saturday's Kansas City Star Earl Falkenstien was quoted as saying, "No one is going to be turned away." Obviously no one was. Mr. Falkenstien merely sold the same seats twice. And there was no end to the hard feelings engendered by this near-sighted policy. Once or twice tempers reached the breaking point and several questions of rightful possession threatened to be settled under the stands. All this could have been avoided if the athletic department had considered its duty to the student body, and to the many fans who came to the campus to see the game.
A repetition of this situation can be avoided if the athletic department will consider a few points:
(1) Inter-collegiate athletics belong entirely to the student body and not to the Athletic department whose function would seem to be advisory rather than dictatorial.
(2) Student tickets are, in effect, reservations for seats and these seats can not be resold.
(3) Each student ticket sold should represent a bona fide seat and not a seat in the imagination of the athletic department.
(4) In deciding policy concerning tickets a student committee appointed by the senate should be consulted.
Furthermore, the athletic department should publicly apologize to the students and to those people who found it impossible to either claim their seat or hold the one which they legally occupied. And certainly the new athletic director should state a concrete workable and HONEST policy which will keep faith with the students and the public alike. But he should remember that year in and year out the student is his best and most loyal customer.
John Scollay Instructor in English
Editor's note: In a telephone conversation Monday, Arthur C. Lonborg defended the athletic department in the following statement:
"I realize that students thought we had sold tickets in their section, and I'm sorry if any hard feelings were created. Actually, student seats should include only sections F through R.Because of an error in ropes between the divisions many students came to the game early and took seats which had been sold to the public. We haven't used some of these sections before, but the demand for tickets at both the Nebraska and Oklahoma games made it necessary to do so."
Candid Comments
A Kansas story listed members of the 1920 "dream team" who had notified the University of their intentions of attending the Homecoming game. It closed with this statement:
"Forty members of the team are still living and others may arrive for the game." We stood at the gate for three hours but didn't see a single corpse wander in.
Visitors to the Kansas newsroom Friday morning thought the paper dolls which adorned the place suggested a breakdown in the mental stability of journalism students undergoing the strain of putting out a Homecoming edition. Actually, the quaint ornaments were the work of a couple of cut-ups.
Late in the second quarter of Saturday's football game eight airplanes were seen circling the stadium. When one hovered so low that the marking "U.S.A.F." was visible on its wing, we wondered whether the federal tax collected from the game's ticket sale was enough to pay for the gasoline.
One alumnus was so dejected after the Nebraska game that he drove home alone, forgetting that his wife and daughter had come to Lawrence with him. The consequences of his act are still unknown, but the unhappy wife and daughter were last seen boarding a train.
KU. students exhibited an abundance of originality with their homecoming decorations built by professional carpenters, pre-fabricated in Kansas City, or borrowed from other colleges.
An editorial in Monday's Kansan suggested that students be permitted to use typewriters for the English proficiency examination and that, if space limitations were a problem, said students might meet in the quonset hut behind Strong hall. Obviously, the writer did not realize that western civilization books are now housed in the green room of Watson library and the quonset hut is occupied by the Bureau of Business Research and Bureau of Government Research.
Law Student Meets Voters Personally
If elections were decided upon the amount of effort put forth in a campaign, Robert M. Green, 26, sophomore law student, thinks he would be a member of the state legislature.
Green, a Democrat, is running for state representative from the 52nd district which includes the north half of Butler county and El Dorado. He is one of five University students running for public office.
Green knocked on 1,500 doors in El Dorado and passed out an equal number of cards, including one to his opponents wife. In addition he distributed an additional 2,000 cards in rural Butler county, including one to a 92-year old lady who said she had never voted for a Democrat and wasn't going to start with him.
His campaign platform includes a 12-year education program. "The present high school program is geared for 10 percent of the people," says Green, "while those who make up the working class have been left untrained." He believes that more schools should combine the manual arts with higher arts, such as the high schools are now doing in Coffeyville and Pittsburg.
ROBERT GREEN
He also advocates increased old-age assistance and is a strong believer in the free school-book plan being one of the few in Kansas who has gone to school under the system.
Green, a waist gunner on an eighth air force B-24 for 33 months during World War II, was graduated from the University of Wichita in 1949
with a bachelor of arts degree. He majored in history and minored in political science before entering K.U. the next fall. He had attended Midlan and Little River High schools.
Green had no opposition in the primary election but admits election is an uphill battle for any Democrat in Kansas.
An embarrassing moment occurred when he visited a farm auction last spring. He wandered into an arena only to find himself knee deep in mud before 200 laughing farmers. There was nothing to do but start distributing cards and he had many friends before the afternoon was over.
Green met the girl he married while doing civil service work in South Carolina after the war. They have one child—a 3-year-old son.
Safety Conscious Cows
Little Rock, Ark. (U.P)—Arkansas stock owners are trying to figure out how to make their cows and horses safety conscious. A ruling by the state supreme court holds that a blast of a train whistle is sufficient warning for animals to get off the track. An engineer who has blown his whistle cannot be held negligent if his train kills an animal on the tracks, the court ruled.
Today's Mail-Rooters, Reds, Republicans
BEAT UTAH
50-Yard Squatters
Difficult To Deny
Dear Editor:
It's high time someone did something about the 50-yard privileged characters at our football games. By privileged characters I mean the persons who call themselves the cheering section.
I think the cheering section should yell and cheer to their maximum ability, not just sit and follow the cheer leaders with little concern as to whether they are heard or not. Maybe they yell their lungs out when the team is ahead or in the process of making a touchdown but so does everybody else in the student body at this point in the game. When the team has a bad break or loses the ball is the time to cheer. It really does make a difference to the men on the field. At times during the Nebraska game student support was downright discouraging.
Dear Editor:
Having signed the loyalty oath, as required by the unerring wisdom
Despite the odds, some of us in the cheering section do yell. Yes, and when we leave the stadium we know that we have been to a football game. . . our voices usually show it. Only this group of loyal rooters deserve to sit on the 50-yard line. However, we are definitely in the minority of the cheering section which numbers about 300.
What can we do about the situation? Shall we let these persons who don't really cheer drag our name into the mud? As for myself, I don't care to masquerade in a white sweater which carries the reputation of a has-been organization. Others who feel the same as I have already turned in their sweaters.
(Name Withheld By Request)
If we all quit, the problem will still be unsolved. Let's put pressure on the pep organizations. Let's get their officers to eliminate those individuals who don't want to participate. If we have to sacrifice numbers for quality it must be done. Let's do away with the name of the 50-yard squatters. Let's give our team the boost it deserves.
A KuKu
of the state legislature, I rather object to being termed an "open minded pink. . crying again" by various College seniors (names withheld by request). I was under the impression that the purpose of the oath was to eliminate such embarrassments. However, at the risk of further castigations, I must offer these College seniors (names withheld by request) gentle criticism.
It would seem to me that, in view of the collected learning represented in the persons of the first three speakers on The World in Crisis, when they agree with such complete unanimity on the subject of recognition of Red China, there might be at least some validity to their opinions—even though they are presumptuous enough to disagree with various College seniors (names withheld by request).
Saricks at least offered academic qualifications in expressing his views on Russia's pre-war actions. As to the Spanish matter, it is largely a question of chronology. Russian aid to the Spanish Reds followed the supplanting of the Spanish Republican powers by those Reds which, in turn, followed the failure of the western democracies to offer that Republican government any support beyond Ernest Hemingway. Russian support became possible only when any support at all became necessary.
As to character assassination, there is a marked difference between that and mere insult. When a man is called a communist, he is subject to the former. No man—not even a College senior (name withheld by request)—can prove he is not a communist so, once charged, a man remains inevitably partly convicted. When, on the other hand, a man is termed a fool, he can establish the falsity of the charges. I grant that in Bricker's case it would be difficult, but it is still possible.
Jack Hines
Graduate Student
(Name published by request)
Socialism, Maybe?
Mr. Chapin is quite right in his
Dear Editor:
appraisal of the Republican-Democratic campaign. Both parties do evade important issues—but he too misses the mark by a long shot. It seems very obvious that the one important issue today is war or peace, survival or destruction, and not Gerrymandering, loyalty oaths, or the Kansas farmer.
Of course the whole issue of war or peace is tied to our domestic economy. Before Korea there were three or four million unemployed, whereas now that we are geared to full scale war production, jobs are again plentiful. How can a nation that depends on war preparations to make jobs for the masses be expected to make a sincere peace effort? Of course we all want peace, but do we want unemployment too?
It is with these things that the big parties should be concerned, and the reason they aren't is obvious. Both parties are committed to support capitalism, whereas only a socialist economy is compatible with a continuous high level of employment without war. To quote from the Kansas socialist party platform: "Unemployment is caused by the difference between wages and the value of the product of labor. This product which labor cannot buy back piles up and layoffs end." This process has gone on until only by the boondogling of war can the surplus product be consumed and prosperity prevail."
Under socialism production can be geared to balance with demand, and the hours of labor reduced progressively at the mechanization of industry proceeds. Thus we can end poverty and war and inaugurate the brotherhood of man.
Walter and Helen Conrad Graduate Students
Now, Children!
In regard to the four disgusted sophomores and seniors who seem to deem it necessary to clean up certain passages of literature. Td like to say: "Why don't the four of you grow up?"
Dear Editor:
Engineering Freshman J.J. Jason
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